Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Cassie's Journal - June 8, 2015

Happy 31st Birthday, Aunt Grace!

Thanks to our first day of exams and study
sessions for our exams tomorrow, I was pretty much out of the loop for Aunt
Grace’s birthday fun; but I did stop in to wish her the best after school on my
way home.Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne
hosted a birthday dinner for her, and Uncle Mark and Aunt Grace are having a
kid-free night tonight too; but didn’t have an all-night party or
anything.That was mostly because our
town doctors, nurse, and others are all very busy right now with getting the
new med center ready to open; with the target date now officially set at two
weeks from today – which just happens to also be Ethan and Ehlana’s birthday.

Our Grade Nine exams today were English,
Computers, and Art, and while that probably sounds fairly easy; even our Art
exam was fairly thorough and included a lot of questions that ranged from art
history to techniques and artist biographies.None of that was a problem for me, and Michael and Rowen were very happy
with how their exams went too; but the best part of the exam news for my class
was that most of my classmates were having a good day as well – whether that
was being happy with doing well-enough to pass or expecting to have better
grades than normal thanks to all of the extra studying.

I’m sure that’s why everyone showed up for
our studying at my house; and we had our after-school session in the back yard –
mostly so we could also go for a swim if we wanted to do that; and have more
room to spread out while we worked.Mom,
Ethan, and Ehlana were there for a while until moving on to Uncle Adam and Aunt
Leanne’s house for the birthday dinner.Mom had dinner ready for us before she left too; but Rowen and I were in
charge of getting the food set out when it was time to eat – and deal with the
clean-up once we were finished.Since
the meal was cold salads, snacks, and Olde Bakery sub buns and fixings for
sandwiches; the work and clean-up wasn’t difficult, though we did end up doing
most of that work without much help.

There were a few different reasons for why
Rowen and I did most of the pre and post-dinner work; with a bunch of the boys
disappearing for baseball practices after we ate being one of the issues.Studying continued through meal time too, and
Rowen and I were tutoring a bit here and there even while doing other work –
and while we were sitting down to eat with Michael and Tim.Math was the biggest worry for most of my
friends for the exams tomorrow, though as usual; I don’t think that some of my
friends paid enough attention to getting ready for our Music and Spanish exams.Yes, math is always one of the toughest
subjects in high school, and is important for a lot of future college plans or
careers; but I think that some of my friends forget that math and science
counts exactly the same as Spanish or music for overall grade point average –
and that can be a bigger deal in the end.The good news this year is that at least all of my classmates have
generally spent more time getting ready for all of our exams that they have in
past years; and maybe all of the earlier studying will make a difference in the
subjects they aren’t spending as much time on each night this week.

Let’s not make a big deal of that; and keep
the update going so that I can wrap this up and get some sleep.

While Michael, Tim, and the other guys were
busy with baseball practices, and once Rowen and I had the kitchen and yard
cleaned up; we got back to serious studying and tutoring – and kept busy with
that through until we wrapped up for the night at ten-thirty.We wrapped up then because most of our
country teens had already been picked up by then; and Rowen, Michael, and I
convinced the rest of the crammers that staying up half the night wouldn’t help
nearly as much as getting a decent night of rest would for being ready for our
exams tomorrow.Michael stayed long
enough to help me with Ethan and Ehlana’s bedtime story after that; we got the
birthday dinner report from them – and then a bit more of that story from Mom
and Dad before Michael went home and Mom did my Magi lesson with me before
sending me up to my room for the night.

The family business work has kept me busy
for more than an hour after I was changed and in bed with Mandy, and the
computer checks and email took a while to get done too; which is why it’s
heading toward two o’clock already despite not doing any language or archive
studying.I’m actually feeling okay
right now despite the long hours and busy day; but we’ll see if that trend
continues for the rest of the week.

I don’t have any other news for tonight, and
exams and studying will be the only action going on for me until we’re finished
with them on Friday afternoon, so that’s all for now; and I’m going to spend
some quality time in dreamland until it’ll be time to get up and going again in
about four and a half hours.

That doesn’t sound like it’ll be long
enough, but every minute of down time does count; so, until next time...